{"id":6818,"date":"2021-06-25T21:29:35","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T20:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6818"},"modified":"2021-06-25T21:29:35","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T20:29:35","slug":"way-of-x-3-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6818","title":{"rendered":"Way of X #3 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Unknown-24.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6819 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Unknown-24.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"182\" height=\"277\" \/><\/a>WAY OF X #3<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>&#8220;Joy of X&#8221;<br \/>\nby Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn &amp; Java Tartaglia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Nightcrawler nurses his hangover while a mutant baby hovers nearby. Pixie and Dr Nemesis are still blind drunk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 2.<\/strong> Data page, with pictures of the Hellfire Gala invitation, and a brief note from Professor X to the mutants present. Whether because he really means it or because he&#8217;s trying to make an argument that will appeal to the whole of Krakoa, Professor X is asking for everyone to at least behave civilly towards the humans, which he claims will be more intimidating.<\/p>\n<p>He reminds everyone of the three laws of Krakoan nationhood, which is handy, because this issue wants the little-mentioned first law &#8211; &#8220;Make More Mutants&#8221; &#8211; to be at the forefront of our mind later on. Quite how the Professor is hoping people to act on it during the Gala is not so obvious, but maybe he&#8217;s anticipating a very enthusiastic afterparty.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><strong>PAGE 3.<\/strong> Recap and credits, in the modified Hellfire Gala style. The title, &#8220;Joy of X&#8221;, is obviously a reference to &#8220;The Joy of Sex&#8221; (1972) by Alex Comfort (1920-2000).<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 4-5.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>Nightcrawler at the Hellfire Gala.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is a\u00a0&#8220;Hellfire Gala&#8221; tie-in issue, but bluntly,\u00a0<em>Way of X<\/em> has a lot to get done, so the crossover consists of two pages plus Nightcrawler being hungover for the rest of the issue. Kurt&#8217;s been conspicuously drunk throughout the Gala tie-in issues, and these two pages are a montage (from his point of view) of his evening:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Page 4 panel 1: Nightcrawler arrives at the party. He has &#8220;a lot on his mind&#8221; because he&#8217;s just learned (last issue) that Onslaught is coming back, on top of which he&#8217;s still preoccupied with the problem of forming a Krakoan society. Legion, last issue, was prompting him to focus on the three laws as a starting point, which is why he&#8217;s blathering about them so much here.<\/li>\n<li>Page 4 panel 2: Nightcrawler talks vaguely about the plot of\u00a0<em>Way of X<\/em> to a bored and annoyed Pixie and Magik. This is also new.<\/li>\n<li>Page 4 panel 3: Nightcrawler rambles about the three laws to an equally drunk Nanny. Also seen in\u00a0<em>Hellions<\/em> #12 (specifically, page 16 panel 6).<\/li>\n<li>Page 4 panel 4: Dazzler refuses to let Nightcrawler use her microphone to address the crowd, mercifully. This is new.<\/li>\n<li>Page 4 panel 5: Nightcrawler wails about the horrors he&#8217;s uncovered in <em>Way of X<\/em> so far, and gets shouldered aside by the Beast. This is meant to be the same scene shown in\u00a0<em>Wolverine<\/em> #13, though they don&#8217;t quite match.<\/li>\n<li>Page 5 panel 1: Kyle Jinadu actually <em>does<\/em> want to talk about the first law, and points out that it&#8217;s (at the least) not obvious what same sex couples are meant to do about it. He also flags up that Meggan is pregnant. This is new, but leads into&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Page 5 panel 2 : Nightcrawler incoherently congratulates a horrified Meggan on her not-yet-public pregnancy, and blearily assures her that he is definitely over their relationship from back in\u00a0<em>Excalibur<\/em> vol 1. This is meant to be the same scene as\u00a0<em>Excalibur<\/em> #21 page 13, though Kurt is <em>much<\/em> less drunk in that version, and doesn&#8217;t start rambling about their past relationship. He also picks up pretty quickly that the pregnancy is not public knowledge.<\/li>\n<li>Page 5 panel 3: Nightcrawler mistakes Emma&#8217;s psychic fireworks for Onslaught. This is new.<\/li>\n<li>Page 5 panel 4: Kitty drags Kurt aside for his own good. Also new.<\/li>\n<li>Page 5 panel 5: A barely conscious Kurt slumps in the corner, unnoticed while Magneto and the Scarlet Witch dance. This is the end of\u00a0<em>S.W.O.R.D.<\/em> #6, but Kurt isn&#8217;t seen in that issue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>PAGES 6-8.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>Nightcrawler wakes up and looks for a hangover cure.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Terraforming Mars.&#8221;<\/strong> In\u00a0<em>Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1. Neither Nemesis nor Legion are impressed by it. Both basically see it as a dramatic empty gesture of power. For Legion, it proved nothing about the power of mutants in general &#8211; it merely proved that a small handful of ultra-powerful mutants can do big things. Where does that leave the normal Krakoan citizen with his power to jump slightly higher than average?<\/p>\n<p>Legion was the one available omega mutant who did not participate in the terraforming of Mars.\u00a0<em>Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1 said that Magneto consciously chose not to invite him; it&#8217;s quite likely that if asked, he would have refused.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Krakoffee.&#8221;<\/strong> The Krakoan equivalent of coffee, while apparently very good, does seem to be something not quite normal, as mentioned in\u00a0<em>New Mutants<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, we have an ongoing series to get back to, so Legion encourages Kurt to go and pay attention to the First Law.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;I could splice a rugrat from any two mutants you care to name.&#8221;<\/strong> This is basically what we saw with the chimeras in an alternate future timeline in\u00a0<em>Powers of X<\/em> &#8211; a plot thread that still hasn&#8217;t gone anywhere. It would indeed be another way of complying with the First Law.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 9.<\/strong> <em>Pixie asks Legion to help Mercury and Loa.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not quite sure how this would work with Mercury, who&#8217;s a fluid shapechanger anyway. But okay.<\/p>\n<p>Pixie makes sure to namedrop Blindfold again, who sure is getting a lot of mentions in this book for a dead character.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 10-12.<\/strong> <em>Stacy X introduces Nightcrawler to the Bower.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Stacy X\u00a0<\/strong>debuted in\u00a0<em>Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #399 (2001) and was a member of the X-Men during the Joe Casey run, though not for terribly long. She previously worked in a mutant brothel in Nevada, and had pheromone control powers. She&#8217;s not a subtle character &#8211; in fact, the subtlest thing about her is that Casey stopped short of naming her X-Stacy &#8211; but if you&#8217;re looking for an X-Men character defined principally by her attitude to sex, she&#8217;s the obvious choice.<\/p>\n<p>Stacy lost her powers on M-Day, and went on to join the version of the New Warriors that consisted of depowered mutants. This is the first time we&#8217;e seen her on Krakoa. Since she has her powers back, the implication is that either she&#8217;s been through the Crucible, or she got murdered at some point before being brought here.<\/p>\n<p>Stacy&#8217;s function here is to confront Kurt with the practical reality of the First Law and with its obvious limitations. Are the Krakoans\u00a0<em>really<\/em> saying that it&#8217;s a national duty to procreate? If so, does that imply that contraception is unpatriotic? Kurt describes Stacy&#8217;s creation as a brothel, but it&#8217;s not entirely clear whether any of these people actually work here &#8211; in this scene, she seems to be offering a space for casual sex and using her powers to help willing couples along. Later on, though, Cortez certainly seems to be using it as a conventional brothel. Kurt is entirely unconvinced by this, perhaps for religious reasons; Stacy sees this at least partially a spiritual endeavour.<\/p>\n<p>Stacy claims that &#8220;pretty much all&#8221; religions have &#8220;a history of temple sex&#8221;. That&#8217;s an overstatement, but it&#8217;s certainly a mainstream view that such practices were widespread in the past. Moreover, it&#8217;s entirely in character for Stacy to see it as a source of pride and a tradition that she can claim to be following.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 13-16.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>Legion helps Loa and Mercury to hook up psychically, in order to flush out Onslaught.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Xorn brothers.<\/strong> Why exactly\u00a0<em>are<\/em> the Xorn brothers just hanging around with Legion? They were also present last issue when Legion was resurrected &#8211; Nightcrawler&#8217;s narration suggested (without naming them) that they were &#8220;gripped by older instincts. To witness. To protect. To balance.&#8221; They&#8217;ve had no dialogue in either issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Sapiens thinking, Pixie.&#8221;<\/strong> This is a slightly uncharacteristic comment by Legion, who doesn&#8217;t normally go in for mutant nationalism. Maybe he&#8217;s being sarcastic. After all, we find out later in the scene that he&#8217;s using this whole enterprise to flush out Onslaught. He seems decidedly unbothered about the collateral damage for Loa and Mercury, who in no way have the sort of close relationship that can stand being fully exposed to one another&#8217;s every thought.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 17-18.<\/strong> <em>Nightcrawler is shown the children.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Make More Mutants&#8221; law has apparently resulted in a lot of abandoned mutant children &#8211; or, if you want to be more charitable, communally raised. It seems a little odd that this hasn&#8217;t become wider knowledge on Krakoa, and that Nightcrawler is only just learning of it. Then again, Krakoa hasn&#8217;t been there that long &#8211; maybe the wave of births has only just hit, and up until now Nightcrawler has simply been noting a pleasing preponderance of pregnant mutants.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lost<\/strong> is now working at the Bower as a&#8230; a nanny, I guess?<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 19-21.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>Lost attacks Fabian Cortez.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cortez<\/strong> has been down on his luck since getting kicked out of S.W.O.R.D. shortly after &#8220;King in Black&#8221;. The woman seems to be a new character; apparently Cortez wanted her to dress as Magneto. Alright then.<\/p>\n<p>Lost (prompted by Onslaught) takes against him following a mention of the Acolytes. Evidently that has something to do with her back story and trauma.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 22.<\/strong> Data page.<\/p>\n<p>Another excerpt from Nightcrawler&#8217;s as-yet-unwritten book. Nemesis&#8217;s description of Onslaught is pretty accurate. As Nightcrawler alludes to \u00a0here, Onslaught originally manifested by corrupting Professor X himself, so if he&#8217;s active on Krakoa, it raises awkward questions about how far Xavier and Magneto can be trusted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 23-24.<\/strong>\u00a0<em>The cast gather at the bar.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Gerhart<\/strong> is a mutant composer. His only previous appearance was in\u00a0<em>Daredevil<\/em> vol 1 #249, where he was one of a number of artistic mutants murdered by Bushwacker. Evidently he&#8217;s made it to the front of the queue for resurrection, presumably for the same cultural reasons as Jumbo Carnation.<\/p>\n<p>Stacy and Pixie helpfully spell out the moral. It&#8217;s a balance between making people feel part of something bigger and not making them lose their individuality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 25.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: HEIRS AND GRACES.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. WAY OF X #3 &#8220;Joy of X&#8221; by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn &amp; Java Tartaglia COVER \/ PAGE 1: Nightcrawler nurses his hangover while a mutant baby hovers nearby. Pixie and Dr Nemesis are still blind drunk. PAGE 2. Data page, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6820,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6818\/revisions\/6820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}